In the RCI report submitted to the Yang diPertuan Agong last month and made public today, the commission said BNM’s foray into active and aggressive forex dealings started during Daim’s tenure as the finance minister (July 1984 to March 1991).
“In his statement to the commission, Daim claimed despite being finance minister, he had no obligation to monitor BNM operations, nor did he conduct any periodic briefing to the prime minister or the cabinet on BNM’s operations.
“However, Daim should have known about what was going on with the forex trading in BNM, as he himself told the commission that the BNM governor did not report directly to the PM.
“He asserted that it would have been insubordination against him as the finance minister and he would not have allowed it,” the report noted.
The conclusion made by the commission was that if Daim had indeed been slack about BNM’s dealings while being finance minister, and the dealings that started under his watch eventually caused billions of losses, then Daim had seriously failed in his statutory duty to the nation.
“Had Daim been more responsible and exercised more supervision, the excessive or speculative forex dealings could have been halted earlier and the losses incurred would be lesser or contained.
“By leaving BNM to its own devices in relation to forex dealings, Daim, had by omission, aided and abetted Nor Mohamed Yakcop in committing CBT,” the RCI said.
The report which was also given to opposition MPs in the Dewan Rakyat today, said it was “definitive on the losses incurred by BNM due to forex dealings in 1992, 1993, and 1994, being a total of RM31.5 billion”.
It also held Nor Mohamed, who quit as Khazanah Nasional deputy chairman two weeks after giving his testimony to the RCI, as the main culprit in the losses suffered by BNM, as he appeared to have absolute control and responsibility for the forex dealing operations.
However, the report also suggested that Nor Mohamed could not have carried on for such a long time without the direct or tacit approval of his superiors and or persons in authority.
The RCI, which was held over nine days from Aug 21 to Sept 19, saw a total of 25 witnesses testifying.
It was led by its chairman Sidek Hassan, who is former chief secretary to the government and current chairman of Petronas.
Other members of the RCI panel were High Court judge Kamaludin Md Said, Bursa Malaysia Bhd chief executive officer Tajuddin Atan, Special Task Force to Facilitate Business co-chairman Saw Choo Boon and Malaysian Institute of Accountants member K Pushpanathan.